


The last one's to figure it out

by themuffinman1227



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Some Humor, and then a whole lot of fluff, cultural miscommunications, mostly fluff tbh, really just a couple of BJ's, some smut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-02
Updated: 2016-07-02
Packaged: 2018-07-19 14:36:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 20,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7365433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themuffinman1227/pseuds/themuffinman1227
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lance is 99% sure that he either want's to be rivals or best friends with Keith, but neither of those scenarios can account for him wanting to kiss Keith or why he fantasizes about him while jerking off in the shower.</p><p>Keith fell hopelessly for Lance back at the Garrison, but he's 99% sure Lance is 100% straight, so he's resolved to keep those feelings to himself as much as possible. Little does he realize his crush probably isn't as hopeless as he imagines.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Alright so I barely even read fanfic before I hopped aboard the Klance hype train, but I hunger for this ship something fierce so now here I am writing my own. So yeah sorry if this blows chunks, or falls into every rookie fanfic writer mistake. I figured I may as well post it anyway cause hey why the hell not, if you like it too then great for both of us.
> 
> Lance's struggle with bisexuality herein is shamelessly inspired by my own, as are many things about him like being from Texas. A lot of this fic is kinda self indulgent to my own headcanons but hey, that's how it works right. Sorry if you don't gel with some of my ideas about the characters or you think I wrote them kinda off, like I said I'm a rookie at this. I'm just here for those sweet red and blue space dorks.

"It's just a friendly rivalry," Lance told himself for the fiftieth time that day. He was talking to himself again, which is something he did when he was nervous. 

"You just want to be better than him, and you also really want to be his friend in a kind of...competitive...bro kind of way," he continued as he walked aimlessly down one of the many cavernous corridors of the castle. Which is another thing Lance did when he was nervous. 

“You don’t have a crush on him or anything," he said with finality, staring intently at the floor before him and furrowing his eyes seriously, as if by convincing the metal deck he could make his words true. 

"If you had a crush on him that would mean you liked guys, and you can't cause you already like girls. You had a crush on the princess when you first met her even. You have a crush on her? AUGH it doesn't matter, the point is this is just your stupid teenage hormones. Or maybe it's because you're just desperate for a girl and he kinda looks like one cause he's got a small build and pretty eyes and long flowing hair and a great complexion and AUGHHHHH STOP IT STOP IT STOP IT. No you know what this is, this is just some weird subconscious response to the bizarre mental strain for suddenly becoming the pilot of a magical blue space lion," reasoned Lance, the deeply in denial teen bisexual. 

"Lance?" Called a voice from down the corridor. 

Lance's head jerked up to see Keith standing about 30 feet ahead of him. He was frozen mid step, hunched over from talking to the ground, hands held in front of him dramatically in a gesture that was accompanying the last bit of his rant. He quickly straightened his posture and shoved his hands into his pockets in a way that he hoped looked casual and composed (it didn't).

"Oh, hey Keith." 

Keith cocked his head to the side. "you ok? You sounded like you were mumbling about something pretty intensely."

Lance flushed slightly and averted his eyes. "Oh, haha yeah, uh, just kinda trying to wrap my head around all the crazy stuff that has happened recently"

the concern melted form Keith's face and it settled into a smile."haha yeah it's like something out of a movie huh, nothing to do but roll with it though."

"Haha, yeah," said Lance unconvincingly, who was trying to NOT just roll with the issue he was currently grappling with. His gaze continued to wander towards anything but Keith, and a silence started to form between them. 

Finally Keith broke it with, "hey I was actually just looking for you, if you're not busy I was thinking we could do some sparring."

Lance felt a fluttering in his gut which he quickly tried to suppress. Keith had been asking to spar a lot lately, always hand to hand. He insisted that it would be too dangerous to spar with their bayards, and even if they did a sword against a gun would be a pretty unfair fight. Keith would also ALWAYS ask Lance. It made a certain amount of sense, they were probably the most evenly matched. Pidge was tiny and Hunk was, well, Huge. And while they were good at a fight against the Galra they weren't an ideal choice for hand to hand sparring. There was Shiro of course, but he could wipe the floor with either or both of them handily, his years more experience in the Garrison and long imprisonment by the Galra saw to that. And so it was Keith and Lance, day after day. Going head to head and punching, kicking, grappling till one of the boys was pinned. Then they would start another round, and another, and another till they were panting heavily. Till they had to both rest where they were pinned between rounds to catch their breath. Till the sweat made the inside of their form fitting paladin armor feel slick and clammy. Lance hated when that happened, it was such a gross feeling he just wanted to take the whole thing off then and there. Besides they were so skin tight, it's not as if the armor actually did much in the training room, they might as well spar nak-

"STOP NO NO NO NO STOP STOP STOP NO STOP NO," screamed Lance's brain at this thought, the thought he always had eventually when sparring with Keith, or thinking about sparring with Keith, or sometimes even just when thinking about Keith. 

"...Uh, dude?" Said Keith, the look of concern had returned to his face

Lance realized his whole body had tensed up and it had been a good while since he said anything. "Oh yeah, sorry," he said trying to relax, but once again darting his eyes away, "I just got caught up thinking about stuff again."

In truth he would like nothing better to spar with Keith right now, in whatever state of dress, but he also knew that if he did his recent one man argument would quickly fall to pieces. The last thing he needed was to roll around in the training room with the boy who, in spite of his denial, he most definitely did have a crush on. 

"I'll spar with you later, maybe, I gotta go do something, I'm busy."

"Oh, well ok, later then," Keith said, plainly disappointed. "What are you busy with?"

"I gotta go...take a shower, I got really sweaty earlier," Lance lied incompetently, and started to head past Keith to his room. 

"Doing what exactly?" Asked Keith incredulously. 

"Boning your mom! Shut up!" Lance said hotly as he whisked past. 

"I don't even know my mom" Keith called after him evenly

"SHUT UP!" Lance shouted and quickened his pace. His face had turned a bright cherry red and he needed to get away before he said something else stupid, or compromising, or got talked into sparring after all. 

\----

Lance did in fact take a shower, and he tried to reiterate his earlier rant, but it had lost its potency. Somehow after talking to Keith it seemed less necessary that he resist his allure. Somehow the warm water on his naked skin made the finer points of liking guys or girls seem so much less important. Somehow in the privacy of the shower it seemed to Lance it actually would be quite enjoyable to spar with Keith naked. Maybe it would also be nice to run fingers through his hair. Nice to kiss him. Nice to...to...

Lance's dick gave an excited twitch at the thought of it all, and his hand moved down to meet it. He began stroking it slowly as he turned the notion over in his head. 

Maybe it could be nice to fool around with a guy, no need to make such a federal fucking issue about it, they were on a spaceship a million light years from earth after all. It's not as if anyone would reprimand them for it, it's not as if anyone would even know probably. Furthermore Keith wasn't at all a bad choice if you had to pick a guy. He was cute, about the same age, a beautifully lean yet fit body. Those pretty indigo eyes. Those soft lips, perfect for kissing, perfect for...for that. 

Lance tightened his grip on his now very erect penis and quickened his pace as his thoughts turned from innocent conjecture to risqué fantasy. 

Oh to have Keith kneeling in front of him with a mouthful of dick, eyes half lidded and worshiping every inch of it. One hand would work the shaft while the other toyed with his balls. His lips would engulf the head as far as he could and suck like his life depended on it. And then he would pull back and pant a little, a string of saliva still running from his mouth to the tip. Then he would look up with those beautiful eyes and then land a single adorable kiss on the head of the cock while his hands continued their work. 

Lance was panting heavily by now and he had to look down and away from the faucet to keep the water out of his face. One hand braced him against the wall while the other stroked furiously at his dick. His eyes clenched shut tight as he tried to imagine it was Keith's hand jerking him off instead of his own. 

Lance's mind continued to race to think up new and interesting ways Keith could fondle and excite him in the short span of time before he would climax. Soon enough he did, as he came his whole body shuddered while his mouth made inarticulate gasping sounds and his mind pictured Keith's face locked in his own simultaneous orgasm. 

And then it was over, and the shame and self doubt came rushing back to him. The specter of his rapidly unraveling heterosexuality returned to haunt him and he was fearful of what he had just done, what he had just thought. 

"Just hormones," he told himself for the thousandth time, "Just some kind of weird coping mechanism."

He saw his recently expunged jizz clotting up in the drain and he scrubbed at it with his foot until it washed away. He stared at the spot for a few seconds as if hoping that erasing the material evidence might also erase the act. 

"You don't have a crush on him," he said automatically, but he didn't really believe himself. He knew deep down that he wanted to be something much more intimate than friends or rivals with Keith. But on another level he knew he wasn't SUPPOSED to want to and that made him feel confused, and scared, and lonely. 

He toweled off and lie in his bed naked. He tried to work himself into another rant but couldn't muster it, he was getting really tired of lying to himself. Maybe it was time to talk to someone else about...whatever this was.

\---

Meanwhile. In his own private room Keith also lay on his bed naked. He was not busy questioning his sexuality, in fact he was quite certain that he was gay and had been for some time. He was however also thinking about a certain boy he had a crush on, and his thoughts were taking on a very similar shape to Lance’s thoughts in the shower. At that particular moment he was imagining Lance riding his dick and digging his nails into his chest while moaning Keith’s name over and over again.

Keith had had a steadily growing crush on Lance since shortly after they met in the Garrison, and this was one of his favorite fantasies. However he had little hope of this fantasy ever becoming a reality because, unlike Lance, Keith was still reasonably sure Lance was heterosexual. The closest he thought he would ever get to actually having sex with his fellow paladin was their close quarters sparring matches. He did enjoy the training aspect of these matches but he would be lying if he said that was the reason he kept suggesting them. When he found Lance wandering the halls he had been bored and horny and hoping for an excuse to be close to Lance and he was genuinely crestfallen when their sparring was postponed for later. Well whenever later was, being bored and getting close to Lance could wait till then but horniness could not, so he made tracks back to his room. 

Keith wondered what had been making Lance so jumpy and evasive earlier, then he stopped wondering because it was actually kind of a boner kill. Instead he thought about sparring with him naked, another one of his favorite fantasies. He liked to imagine they would spar for a bout and then they would fuck and the winner would get to top, but with stakes like that really they were both winners.

"Oh no Lance, looks like you beat me this time," he moaned sarcastically through gritted teeth. Then he rolled over onto his knees and popped his ass into the air to simulate doggy styles. One of his hands continued to work his tool while the other probed experimentally at his hole. 

He slipped a finger in and took in breath sharply. His other hand continued to pump away frantically. "Fuck" he gasped. 

At two fingers he began to moan pleasurably and arch his back 

"Fuck, Lance, just stick it in already," he whined as enticingly as he could. And with that he added a third finger. He began to really pound his hole, almost matching pace with the other hand which still likewise pumped away at his dick. With every thrust he would whimper softly and occasionally let out little expletives. Soon he was at the point of no return and came explosively into the sheets. 

"Lance," he muttered one last time as his body went limp, this time more because of his crush than any erotic factor. The libido was after all merely a product of the crush. 

When they had first met at the Garrison Keith was still coming to grips over how remarkably gay he was. Lance was yet another guy that he suddenly found attractive. That's how it had started at any rate, but then somehow that lanky, conceited goofball had become mysteriously irresistible to Keith. It was already confusing enough to Keith that he liked guys but then he went and found a guy that was apparently just his type. There had been a few other guys he fancied at the garrison, some of them even leading to make outs and invasive hands in secluded corners of the base, Keith was more than sure he liked guys at any rate by the time he washed out. But he still dreamed of Lance, the impossible dream it would seem as Lance appeared to only like girls. 

And now Keith was stuck with his dream boy on a massive spaceship with a million secluded corners, but that just made it worse. There might come a chance at some fooling around, the only girl around here for Lance was the princess after all and she didn't seem likely to give him the time of day, eventually horny desperation might convince him to be a little more adventurous. Keith didn't want that though, he had known guys like that at the garrison, guys only looking for one thing and asking for it way too insistently. He didn't want to be like that with Lance. He wanted to cuddle with him, feel Lance's body heat on his back and his breath in his hair. He wanted them to inappropriately exchange innuendo and sweet nothings in the middle of missions. He wanted a million silly, sweet, pointless things, like "a kiss for every Galra fighter you take down," stupid little traditions for them to cherish. And ok yeah, he also wanted them to fuck like animals, so what?

Basically Keith wanted Lance to be his goofy, loveable, slightly douchey, dorkwad of a boyfriend. That's a tall order though if the guy you're pining after isn't into guys. So he just wouldn't ever bring it up, and if he rushed back to his room to jerk off after every sparring match what of it? He would call that his just reward for not jeopardizing their friendship by bringing his thirst out into the open. 

He had finally caught his breath after his most recent Lance-centric jerkoff. The load he had shot into his bunk had grown cold and clammy against his hand, groin and abs while he was meditating on their hypothetical relationship. Keith rolled out of bed and got to his feet, examine the wet spot, hoping it would dry before he slept tonight, and that it would not leave a stain. Then he retired to the shower to wash himself off, making a mental note to quit cumming all over the place where he slept. 

He worked with the dispassionate grace of a man who has done this a thousand times. For all he knew he had. He was starting to get tired of his routine. Jerking off helped with wanting to have sex with Lance but only made his other longings worse. Maybe he could try to make a pass at Lance anyway. Maybe it could just start with sex and Lance would come around after a while. Maybe Lance wasn't straight after all.

Keith slammed an open palm against the shower wall in frustration. "Maybe maybe maybe. Maybe BULLSHIT," he muttered angrily. He was chasing a pipe dream in a pipe dream in a wet dream, thinking up hypotheticals wouldn't get him anyway, the facts were what they were. 

Keith thought back to how Lance had acted in the corridor earlier. Was he avoiding him? Keith cringed at the thought. Maybe Lance was getting sick or their routine too. Maybe Keith had been a little too obvious with some of his more risque sparring and Lance had seen through to his true motives. Maybe he-

DAMMIT. Keith struck his own forehead with his open palm this time. He was doing it again, now in the opposite direction. What he really needed was a sounding board, he was way too caught up in his feelings to think objectively. 

He cut the shower, toweled off and put his clothes back on. Then he headed for his usual confidant. The advice would probably be fairly predictable, the same advice he received every time he presented this problem, but it felt good to talk about it anyway.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance and Keith seek a second opinion, from Shiro and Pidge respectively, both of whom saw this predictable teen romance bullshit coming from a mile away.

Lance made his way to the weight room. Hunk had said he had seen Shiro here earlier and he hoped that would still be the case. Even with just seven people in it, it was hard to track anyone down in this massive ship. 

As he rounded the final corner he was greeted by the sound of masculine grunting. Success. Lance stepped through the doorway and saw Shiro curling a hefty barbell with his non-robotic arm. For a moment Lance just stood still and watched him. The older man was positively ripped, sweat beaded on his forehead, his neck, his biceps. Muscle and tendons corded and swelled under his skin with every motion. At the bottom of each rep he let out a low groan and his face grew grimly determined with the effort. Every second of him could be a marble statue that would make Michelangelo jealous. For a moment Lance considered that it would actually also be quite nice to spar naked with Shiro sometimes.

Shiro finally took notice of him and dropped his barbell to the gym floor, the sound of it jolting Lance from his stupor. Then he stood up and toweled off in a single motion and warmly greeted him.

"Hey there Lance, you need something or were you just coming to work out?" 

"Uh no, not work out," he replied distractedly, his mind still trying to purge the thought of naked Shiro. 

"Well what can I do for you then?"

Lance finally (reluctantly) discarded the image, "I wanted to talk to you about something."

"Sure thing. I'm all ears."

"And I'd kinda like this to just stay between us." 

"Oh. I see" Shiro said as he sat back on the workout bench, then he gestures to the bench next to him "why don't you come sit over here then?"

"Yeah ok." Lance walked over and sat down. 

"So what is it you want to talk about?"

Lance paused for a long time, Shiro sat patiently as he waited for him to speak. Finally Lance said "I think I'm having some, I don't know exactly, I've been having some weird thoughts lately."

"You don't mean like...suicidal thoughts do you?" Shiro asked intensely. His brow furrowed and his eyes bore into Lance. A wave of images from his Galra imprisonment streamed through his mind. He had seen a lot of fellow prisoners break under the Galra like that and he didn't want to see it happen to a fellow paladin.

"What? No. Not that. I'm way too great to want to deprive the universe of my presence."

"Oh," Shiro relaxed visibly "what kind of weird thoughts then."

"I dunno. It's hard to explain. I guess it's just puberty or something." Lance answered evasively and looked away from Shiro. His voice had started to taper off till it was nearly inaudible. 

"Like, thoughts about girls?"

"...no.” 

"Thoughts about guys?"

"...yeah. Pretty much."

"Intimate thoughts?"

"Yep." Lance answered curtly, his voice somewhere between defensive and fearful, his cheeks starting to color. He started to tap his foot rapidly, another nervous habit. 

"And why is that weird?" A slight smirk crept into the corner of Shiro's mouth. 

"BECAUSE I ALREADY LIKE GIRLS!" Lance exploded, flailing his arms for added emphasis. "What are you smirking at? I'm trying to bare my soul to you and you're sitting here mocking me?"

"No no," Shiro said in a conciliatory tone "it's just kinda funny, why can't just just like both guys AND girls?"

"Because,” Lance struggled for words, his arms still flailing expressively, “I just can't,” He concluded weakly, “that's just not a thing. Ok well, I mean, I guess it's a thing for some people. But not me. I'm straight."

"Oh? It doesn't exactly sound like it." Shiro tried and failed to keep the smirk off his face.

"I'm not bi!" Lance said angrily "that's not what this is, it's just hormones or something, and I need some advice on how to make it stop."

"Again. What makes you so sure that's the case?"

"I dunno. I just can't be. Bisexuals are like, a whole other thing that I'm not, I've never even met one."

"You have though" Shiro said matter of fact. 

"Wait what? who?" His mind flipped through every person he had ever known, "Allura?" He asked hopefully. 

"Yes actually." 

"What really?" Lance said dumbfounded. 

"Yeah. Coran too. Their planet had a very different view of sexuality, to them it would seem incredibly shallow to turn someone down simply based on their gender and as result pretty much all Altaeans are bisexual. But that's not who I meant."

"Who then?"

"Me of course." Shiro stated almost triumphantly. 

"You?" Lance was astonished, "but you're...you...I thought you were straight." 

"Well, you thought wrong frankly, I am most decidedly bisexual." Shiro teased, with the air of someone who has had to explain this many times. 

"But I've never heard that you liked guys."

"Have you ever heard that I liked girls even? You seemed pretty sure that I did." 

Lance reflected on this, "I guess not, I dunno, I just thought that. I dunno what I thought."

"So are you still so sure you're straight?"

Lanced paused to think about this for a long time. "No. I guess I'm not." 

Shiro chuckled "Just like that huh? You don't take much convincing Lance."

Lance shrugged, "I dunno man, I think you're probably right so there's no use fighting it. I guess I knew but hearing someone else put it like that just kinda clenches it. To hell with it, I'm bi too. Let's all have a big bi party to celebrate our indiscriminate lust."

"Haha I'll have to get right on that with the princess. I'm glad I could help you figure it out Lance, I sure wish I had had someone to help me through it when I was your age. It took me a good while longer to come to terms with it." Shiro clapped him on the shoulder paternally. "Was that everything or did you want to talk about something else?"

"Well there was one other thing, I guess it's kinda related. I think I might have a crush on a guy on this ship." Lance looked up at Shiro shyly as if his confession pained him. 

Suddenly Shiro recoiled his hand as if the robotic limb had shorted and sparked. "Oh man, Lance," he sounded flustered, "I'm sorry if I gave you the wrong impression there, I think it's great that you've come to terms with your sexuality but I'm WAY too old to be fooling around with a teenager."

"What?" Lance was confused, nothing Shiro just said made any sense to him. Then suddenly understanding hit on him. "NOT YOU."

"Oh thank god,” Shiro sighed.

"I mean, I do think you're...really hot, I'm not going to kid myself on that anymore. But you're not the guy I have a crush on," then suddenly Lance sat up and continued testily "also what do you mean 'oh thank god,' you would be lucky to have a hot piece of ass like me."

Shiro chuckled, "that I would Lance. I just misunderstood you. Anyway," he changed the subject hurriedly, "about the object of your affection, I suppose I could give you some pointers but it's probably better if you figure it out on your own. And I think I probably ought to give you some time to think over what we just talked about anyway."

"Yeah, probably."

"Well" said Shiro as he stood up to leave "I tell you what, mull over it for a week or two and if you still have trouble confessing how you feel to Hunk we can revisit the subject."

"I DO NOT HAVE A CRUSH ON HUNK." Lance shot defensively at Shiro as he made for the door.

"I know I know, I'm only getting your goat" Shiro called jubilantly over his shoulder "it's obviously Keith."

Lance was struck by this. Was he being that obvious? Did Keith know too? Keith, who he did after all have a huge embarrassing crush on. Keith who he thought about naked whenever they sparred. Keith who he thought of when jerked off to in the shower. Oh god what if he WAS that obvious. He hadn't even been able to recognize it as a crush till practically just now, how much damage had he already done?

"What the hell do you mean obviously?" Lance called out, half in anger, half in desperation. But he was too late, by this point Shiro was nothing but a distant echo of footsteps. He sat there and pondered his current predicament. He had answered one crisis but the resolution had brought with it a whole slew of new questions. He took Shiro’s advice and thought in solitude for a long long while.

\---

"So Pidge, hypothetically-" Keith started 

"Keith oh my god," Pidge cut him off, "Just tell him how you feel already you thirsty gay mess."

"I didn't even finish!" Keith insisted

"Like you need to, it's obvious what you're about to talk about. And it's equally obvious to anyone with one eye and half a brain that you have it bad for that self obsessed stick figure we call a teammate. I'm surprised he hasn't figured it out with his two eyes and a quarter of a brain. You probably pop a hard on at every one of you 'sparring sessions'." Pidge punctuated his last words with sardonic air quotes before returning to his typing.

"Don't use your air quotes at me, we do actual sparring,” Keith protested. “And for the record the paladin suits hide a lot, I'm careful about that," he muttered impudently.

"Gross,” Pidge grimaced, “but ultimately unimportant. The point is this is weighing on you, as it has apparently been for years now based on what you told me. Now you're stuck with him in space, it's going to come to a head eventually, and the sooner it does the sooner you'll be free of the stress, one way or another." Pidge kept his eyes fixed on his computer the entire time he spoke and his fingers continued to tap away steadily. "And the sooner I can stop having to hear you whine about it," he added under his breath. 

"But what if it makes things weird between us?" Keith whined. 

"You two will get over it eventually. You might even become closer in the long run anyway. If not you can always fall back on your weird pilot rivalry thing, sans the sexual tension."

"What if it like, affects our ability to form voltron?"

"Oh, well then I guess the universe is doomed because two dumb teenage boys couldn't get over the petty spectacle of one of them wanting to kiss the other," Pidge said nonchalantly, "real dick move guys. But let's be real here Keith" he continued, finally looking up at the other boy, "we can form Voltron because we need to defend the universe, that's what holds us together, not your lack of relationship drama."

"Ok, fine. No one has anything to lose except me. Why should I confess when I know he's straight."

"You assume he's straight. Just like you assumed I was a boy when you first met me."

"You are a boy though."

"I am, but I didn't realize that immediately. My later trans revelation notwithstanding, I was still more or less tricking everyone into thinking I was a guy when I wasn't. Appearances can be deceiving."

"Are you suggesting Lance isn't straight?" Keith asked incredulously. 

"I'm suggesting you're making excuses not to act by assuming he is, even though you don't know at all."

"You've seen how he is with Allura."

"All that proves is he likes girls."

"You're awful cavalier with your advice when you don't have any concept of what I'm dealing with," Keith said accusingly, hoping to turn the argument by changing the subject. 

"True," Pidge pondered. "I've never understood why anyone would want to undertake such a thankless task as liking someone, but I guess that's what happens when you have zero libido." 

"Well put yourself in my shoes for a second and imagine you have a Libido the size of the fortress of lions, and a debilitating crush on Lance."

Pidge looked exaggeratedly pensive for a second then stated, "hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, I would still tell him."

Keith let out an exasperated groan and smushed his face into a pillow. 

"What other options do you really think you have Keith?" Pidge snapped, "how long do you think it's gonna be till that boy gets tired of you groping him in the training room?"

Keith tensed up as he remembered the corridor again and he let loose another grown into the pillow. 

"Oh stop it."

"ITS HAAAARD." Keith said without removing his face from its pillowy tomb. 

"It's not that hard"

"Maybe not for you!"

"Fine then," Pidge said and threw his hands up, "I'll tell him"

Keith bolted upright and grabbed Pidge by the shoulders, eyes full of determination "No! If anyone is going to tell him it's me."

"Then do it already!"

Another groan from Keith as his eyes slid away from the other boy. This time it sounded even more pitiful without the pillow. "I already told you it's HAAAAARD." 

"Do it today or I'm taking matters into my own hands." 

Keith averted his eyes and stayed silent until finally Pidge shouted "KEITH" so loud that it made him drop his hands from his shoulders. 

"Ok. I'll try," conceded Keith, "But I'm not making any promises. And if I can't do it today you're still not allowed to tell him."

"No way. I'm not making any promises either. You try it and I'll see how I feel later."

Keith grumbled and eye rolled some but he knew he had been beat, Pidge's argument was perfectly valid and his threats were no joke either. He would have to think of something good if he hoped to hold out any longer. Oh well, he thought as he stood up to go, no sense in sticking around here with such a hostile audience. 

"Fine, but remember, you don't try anything for the next 24 hours," Keith called as he exited the room.

"Today means today Casanova" said Pidge ruthlessly, already returning to his computer "I never said anything about 24 hours."

Keith cursed under his breath, it was almost time for dinner. He had maybe time for one good chance until Pidge took matters "into his own hands."

He had to think of some way to get him to not spill the beans. Pidge certainly wouldn't just forget, that kid had a mind like a steel trap. He didn't think he could dissuade him with words either, and short of brute force and intimidation there wasn't a whole lot else Keith could think of to make him keep a lid on it. But no, he wouldn't go that far, if he was exposed it would be mortifying but not disastrous on the long run. Pidge might be 10 pounds of jackass in a 2 pound bag but this wasn't worth roughing him up over. Ugh he still had to think of something to get that little gremlin off his back though, but what?

Keith pause mid stride. "You know what?" He announced to the empty hallway around him "Screw it, I'll just tell him this time." That was the most sure fire way to neutralize Pidge’s threat, just beat him to it. Sure that was just what Pidge really had wanted but at least if it ended horribly he'd still be the master of his fate.

He was filled with determination now and redoubled his pace. He would tell Lance how he felt, and he would do if the very next time he saw him. And if he didn't then...well he wouldn't worry about that because he was going to really do it this time. 

Shiro rounded the corner in front of him, dressed in his gym clothes and smelling of sweat. "Hey there Keith, I thought that shout sounded like you. What are you doing stomping around?"

Shout? Oh god was that out loud? It was he realized with embarrassment. 

"Whatever it was it sounded like you were all fired up about something."

"Oh, yeah" Keith admitted abashedly "I was looking for Lance, I need to talk to him something important, have you seen him?"

Shiro grinned knowingly "as a matter of fact I have, I was just talking to him in the weight room. He's probably still there and I'm sure he'll be happy to see you."

"Really?" Keith asked a little too enthusiastically. His heart leaped into his throat then quickly plummeted as he wondered what Shiro meant by that. He probably suspected what Keith was going to say to Lance already, and if he didn't Keith sure was doing a bad job of concealing it. "He sure didn't seem too happy to see me last time we talked," he sulked bitterly. 

Shiro's smile softened sympathetically, "he just had a lot on his mind. Whatever you wanted to tell him I think he'll be ready to hear it now."

"Huh. Alright, well, thanks Shiro." Keith made a beeline for the weight room. Shiro might suspect what was afoot but he could worry about damage control later. There was room for only one thing in his mind right now and that thing was waiting for him in the weight room.

"Sure thing, good luck." He couldn't tell but it looked like Keith flinched at that last bit. "The joys of youth," Shiro added to himself once Keith was out of sight. Then he made his way towards where Keith had come from and quickly came upon Pidge's still open door. 

"Pidge," he questioned, "does Keith have a crush on Lance?"

"Oh yeah, big time" Pidge replied instantly. Then he stopped typing for a moment and slowly looked up at Shiro. "Does Lance have a crush on Keith?"

Shiro grinned mischievously and a note of teasing haughtiness entered his voice, "I can neither confirm nor deny any feelings that Lance may or may not have towards Keith because unlike you I don't rat on people who trust me with their secrets. However I will say I think that their sparring match might have an interesting twist ending today."

Pidge quickly shut down his computer and hopped off his bunk. "Let's get to the training control room and watch then"

"Pidge!" Shiro chided, but Pidge was already shouldering past him. 

"Come on you know you want to see it too. This is going to be really cute or really hilariously stupid."

"Probably both," Shiro sighed and followed him. 

"Probably both," Pidge agreed.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith and Lance go sparring and learn some interesting new things about each other. Then they go back to Lance's room and learn some very interesting and very personal new things about each other.

When Keith found Lance he was still sitting exactly where Shiro had left him, a look of intense concentration on his face, his foot tapping furiously. His mind trying to adjust to the realization Shiro had helped him arrive at and all the implications it held.

"Lance!" Shouted Keith, he meant to go on, to lay it out all right there but the words caught in his throat. 

"Keith?" Lance said as he looked up. His foot became dead still. The two boys locked eyes. 

"Hey." 

"Hey." 

A silence grew between them, they were frozen there, held in each other's gaze. 

"I..." Keith began, the silence cracked, but already threatening to reinstate itself. "I..." He repeated, trying to keep it at bay, trying to say what he had wanted to say for years now. Just say it dammit, say "I think I might be in love with you," JUST SAY IT. 

"...was wondering if you were read to spar now?" Keith finished meekly. Inside his head was a symphony of screamed curses and self abasements mostly revolving around cowardice. 

The silence threatened again till finally Lance replied "yeah, let's go." For a moment he had hesitated, some voice in the back of his mind insisted that if he went with Keith now there would be no turning back. Well Lance didn't want to turn back anymore, he was damn sure he wanted to grapple with this cute boy naked, but he wasn't about to turn his nose up at doing it clothed either. 

And with that they were off, padding along the metal corridors, their rythmic footfalls keeping them just ahead of the silence that tried to overtake them. If that silence gathered them up they knew they wouldn't get another chance to say what they wanted to say. Somehow they instinctively recognized that this was their first and last chance to confess, and they couldn't let it slip away.

Their paladin suits were already in the training room where they had left them yesterday. Their routine was to change right there and then change back into their normal clothes at the end. There was no point in taking the suits back to their rooms, Keith had reasoned, they seemed to magically clean themselves and it would be one less thing to carry back and forth. Lance didn't argue. 

The two boys quickly stripped to their underwear and stole surreptitious glances at one another. This had also become routine since they had started changing in the training room, today however they were hyper aware of what they were doing, trying to look casual and unconcerned but actually tensely conscious of their line of sight and their state of arousal. Reluctantly they then began to dawn their paladin suits, each of them briefly entertaining the notion that they should just spar without them but the suggestion passed unspoken. Then they were ready to fight. 

"Ready?" Asked Lance.

"Yeah," answered Keith.

"Go!"

They crashed into each other and each caught hold, desperately trying to bend the other into submission. They struggled for a bit and then recognizing the stalemate they disentangled. 

"What were you talking to Shiro about in the weight room?" Asked Keith casually as they circled each other and looked for an opening. They didn't usually talk while sparing, except trash talk, but it wasn't unprecedented. 

"Just chatting," replied Lance, just as casually. He made a swipe at Keith but it was slow and easily dodged. "Did you know Allura is bi?" That caught Keith off guard, Lance seized the moment and made a grab at Keith's shoulder but he twisted out of it before he could find purchase. Keith skirted away to a safe distance. 

"News to me, how did that come up if you two were just chatting?" He still wasn't sure if this was an actual conversation now or some kind of cheap distraction. 

"I dunno, we were talking about Altean culture and apparently that was the norm on their planet. Coran is too." They continued to circle. Suddenly Keith charged in fast and low and tried to tackle Lance over. Lance wasn't able to dodge but he kept his footing, Keith remained wrapped around his waist trying to uproot and topple him. Lance tried to disentangle himself and pounded at the red paladin's back but to no avail. Finally he gave way and felt to the side and was able to twist out of it. For a moment both boys had to scramble to their feet, but then they were back to circling, both of them slightly winded now. 

"Shiro is bi too," Lance went on. 

"Really? Huh. I had heard that he was," Keith said disinterestedly. It was actually quite interesting, he had heard rumors of that in the garrison but now he had it for a fact. He wasn't going to give Lance the satisfaction of his astonishment though, he had a sneaking suspicion that somehow Lance had learned he was gay and was trying to use it to throw him off. It made him angry to think he could be so low. He prepared for another charge, intending to show him just what he thought of such low tactics. 

"...and me," Lance added almost inaudibly. 

"What?!" Now Keith really was astonished, to the point of incredulity. Did he just say that...

"I'm bi too," Lance said, a little louder but with no more confidence. 

Keith was stopped dead in his tracks. The single thought "LANCE ISN’T STRAIGHT, LANCE LIKES GUYS" droned through his head like a broken record. It was too good to be true, surely this was a dream, or a joke, or something. "Seriously?" He asked, sounding every bit as surprised as he was. 

"Well, yeah," Lance shot back hotly, "is that really so shocking?"

"I mean, yeah actually." It was very shocking to poor, confused, lovestruck Keith. 

"You got a problem with it or something?" It was Lance's turn to get angry now. His voice grew dark and his face clouded, he got low to the ground, ready to start something more serious than mere sparring. 

"No way, not at all, I think it's great. I mean not great," (he did in fact thing it was great), "I mean, it's fine, I'm fine with it. I don't have any problem with it," Keith reassured. He in fact thought this was one of the greatest things he ever heard. "I was just so sure you were straight, I guess Pidge was right after all." This appeared to sufficiently calm Lance down. Once again they began to circle. 

"So what about you?" Probed Lance. 

"What about me?" Said Keith as he repeated his charge from earlier, this time Lance wasn't as quick and they fell to the ground together in a tangle of limbs with Keith on top. 

"I'm saying who do you like?" Grunted Lance as he scrapped like a mad dog to avoid being pinned, he was especially careful to guard his crotch. He did this less out of a fear of Injury and more because of the effect Keith writhing on top of him was having on his person. 

"You, I like you," Keith though internally but words couldn't make it any further. "I don’t see how that's any of your business," he said on reflex, before he realized the absurdity of keeping it a secret at this point. "I'm gay though" he added quickly. Lance's concentration lapsed as he took in this new information, just then one of Keith's knees brushed against his now half erect hard-on. Lance let out a Yelp of surprise and cocked one leg back and kicked forward to shove Keith off of him. Unfortunately he had overestimated and sent Keith flying onto his back. 

Lance cursed his own skittishness. This sort of thing happened often enough, he shouldn't have been so caught up by. It was one of the unspoken rules of their sparring, sometimes boners just...happened. To each other they would say it was inevitable in such close proximity, with another body grinding against yours. They knew that wasn't the real reason but they kept that to themselves. Why had he been so jumpy about it? He wasn't sure if it was his own confession just now or Keith's.

Lance got up and stood over the now floored Keith, he looked like the wind was knocked out of him. "Are you ok?" Asked Lance, the concern plain in his face. Just then Keith pivoted his hips and hooked Lance's legs with his own. Lance, quite literally swept off his feet, fell gracelessly to the floor. 

"Come on dude that's like the oldest trick in the book, you shouldn't let your guard down like that," Keith teased as he popped up easily and came back at Lance to try for a pin again. 

"You dick!" Shouted Lance as he scuttled away until he could find his footing again, "I was genuinely worried for you."

Keith chuckled at him and Lance responded with a hint of a smile. They began to circle one another again, now well winded but happy, warmed up, and ready to keep fighting. 

"So, you said Shiro is bi too?" Keith said, Bringing the circle in tighter. 

"Yeah, I did," Lance affirmed, "but don't get your hopes up." As the circle closed the boys started to swat and grab at each other, not so much as an attack but merely to keep the other off balance, both physically and mentally. 

"Why's that, you don't think I'm pretty enough?" Keith fluttered his eyelashes ostentatiously. 

"No" grunted Lance (in fact he thought Keith was very pretty). He swatted at Keith's head, who parried his blow easily. "He just said he was too old to fool around with teenagers." 

"Oh my god you were totally hitting on him in the weight room weren't you?" Lance took another swat at his head, this one connected but did little but shut Keith up. 

"No way" Lance protested as he made a full on pounce at Keith. Keith however was too quick and crouched underneath him to grab him and flip him onto the ground. Then he quickly scrambled on top of Lance and tried for a pin. "No way," Lance repeated, as he struggled on his back, "it just came up while we were talking and he told me up front so I wouldn't get my hopes up. I'm trying to do you a favor and tell you the same."

"Uh huh, sure thing dude, like you wouldn't instantly try to hit on that given the chance." Keith managed to pin down one of Lance's hand and was going for the other, he made sure to keep an eye on Lance's legs too so he wouldn't be sent flying again. 

"Ok I'm not saying I wouldn't, I’ll be honest Shiro is like the hottest guy I've ever met, but I didn't." Lance finally twisted the pinned hand free and latched it onto Keith's face, where both of his hands immediately moved to try and remove it. "He stopped me before I could even think about getting started. Shut it down pronto. Ask him yourself if you don't believe me." While Keith was distracted trying to liberate his face, Lance used his free arm to leverage them both over so now he was the one on top trying to get a pin on Keith. 

Keith struggled to free himself but Lance was too heavy, so he focused on keeping his hands free till he could think of something. "Well that's just great," he said sarcastically, "if Shiro isn't interested I guess that means my dating pool currently consists of only you."

"I'm not doing much better" said Lance commiseratively, "for me that makes Allura, Pidge and you." He grabbed frantically for Keith's hands and finally caught one by the wrist and pinned it to the floor. 

"Nope," Keith said as he concentrated on keeping his other hand free, "Pidge counts as a guy but he's not in mine because he doesn't like anyone, and Allura might be into guys but I don't think she likes you, that leaves you down to only me." He tried to copy what Lance did earlier and grab at his face but Keith's reach was much shorter and Lance was able to pull back and still keep his other hand firmly trapped. Then he snatched Keith's outstretched hand from the air and they struggled for the final pin. 

"Fine then," Lance grunted with exertion, "only you." At his final word he pressed Keith's wrist into the deck and the match was his.

Their bodies both immediately went slack, but they stayed where they were, now exhausted, panting heavily, their faces mere inches away. Only now did Keith notice he had his hardon firmly nestled against Lance's ass. Only now did Lance likewise notice that he had an erection poking into Keith's abdomen. If they weren't already flushed from sparing their faces would be reddening with embarrassment. If their hearts weren't already pounding from exertion they would be now from excitement. In each boys head echoed the words "only you" in the voice of the other. 

"Keith?"

"Yeah?"

"You don't want to go another round do you?"

"Hell no."

"Do you wanna..."

"You mean like..."

"Yeah"

"Definitely." 

"Really?" 

"Yeah!"

And with that they both scrambled to their feet and shed their paladin suits as quickly as possible. Mid way through they stopped and looked at each other. 

"Aren't there like cameras in here?" Lance asked. 

Keith nodded, "I think so, probably? your room," he replied.

"My room," Lance agreed.

They finished stripping off the suits and turned again to give each other a long appraising look. Keith's boxers had an obvious protrusion out in front, and Lance's briefs left little to the imagination either. They stood there as if silently debating weather or not they really cared about the camera's all that much. They finally concluded they did, retrieved their regular clothes and without even dressing practically sprinted to Lance's bedroom, each scarcely suppressing whoops of excitement.

Meanwhile up in the training room control booth the very nearly would be voyeurs breathed a sigh of relief at the self restraint of the two boys. 

"I'm glad they didn't just start fucking then and there but I was expecting them to at least kiss." Said Pidge. 

"They're both young and in their own ways rather shy, don't begrudge them their privacy, even for the little stuff." Chastised Shiro. "But yeah I'm glad they didn't just go at it right there, I'd feel weird using the training room after that."

"Was Lance telling the truth, about him not flirting with you?"

"Not telling, that conversation was in strictest confidence." Shiro said firmly. 

"Oh come on" Pidge begged, "he declassified that part himself, beside the exit those two just made was the very antithesis of subtlety, I'm sure everything you talked about will be public knowledge within a week."

"Well you can wait a week then."

"Come ooooon Shiro" whined Pidge. 

"Oh fine. I guess you have a point. Technically no he didn't hit on me, I thought he was confessing a crush on me instead of one on Keith and I jumped to conclusions."

Pidge considered this momentarily. "I think even I would have trouble not macking on you if I was in their shoes. Lance must really have it bad for Keith."

"Yeah, and it seems like Keith reciprocates his feelings just as strongly."

"Oh you have no idea. If I had to listen to him pine over Lance for even one more day I was going to strangle them both." Pidge throttled the air for emphasis. 

"Hehe, that would be quite a feat with your tiny arms."

"I may be a pipsqueak Shiro but I have the rage of ten thousand pipsqueaks on my side."

"Good to know, if we ever lose Voltron we can just send you at Zarkon."

"Hey as long as you can get him to talk exhaustively about the boy he likes I'll be unstoppable."

"Aw come on now, you're being a little harsh on them, they're young and confused and kind of adorable."

Pidge adjusted his glasses. "Yeah I guess so. I'm just happy the finally figured it out." 

"Me too."

Both of them stared out at the recently vacated training room, the red and blue paladin suits were flung haphazardly across the floor, one of Lance’s socks still lay where he had dropped it in his haste. Shiro smiled fondly as he thought of the deeply smitten young boys then wordlessly left the control room. Pidge looked on for a moment more then followed him out.

\---

As soon the door to Lance's room shut he pinned Keith against it and mashed their lips together hungrily. One hand was planted firmly on Keith's sternum and the other combed through his mullet. Keith rested both hands on Lance's chest. They kissed noisily, and frantically, and clumsily, with lots of teeth clanking and grazing lips. Below their waistbands their still turgid erections collided as well, with only two thin sheets of fabric separating them. 

They took a break from kissing to catch their breath but kept their foreheads pressed together and panted so that their warm wet breath washed over each other faces and necks down to their clavicles. 

"I've wanted to do that every time we sparred," crooned Lance. 

"I've wanted to do that ever since I met you," confided Keith as he re-initiated the kissing. This time he was gentle about it and Lance reluctantly followed his lead. They held each other tenderly, Keith having to tilt his head up slightly to compensate for the difference in height, and when they broke apart again he let out a little chuckle. 

"What's so funny? Surely it isn't my kissing skills because those are most definitely off the chart," Lance insisted. 

"No it's not that, and they are," said Keith reassuringly, "I just never thought kissing you would be anything more than a fantasy."

"You've fantasized about me?" Lance asked in astonishment before regaining his usual joking cocky demeanor, "I mean not that I'm surprised, I know I'm irresistible, but please tell me more."

"Douche," Keith said, and slugged him on the shoulder playfully. 

"Ouch," Lance replied with theatrical pain, "I thought we were done sparring. At least let me put my armor back on, your punches hurt."

"Oh hush. I'll kiss it better for you," Keith said and then kissed Lance on the lips. 

"That wasn't where you punched me"

"It's better isn't it?"

"I guess so" conceded Lance, and then fell to kissing again. 

They continued making out for several minutes. Gradually becoming more frantic and aroused again. Lance's briefs were discarded, quickly followed by Keith's boxers, both of which joined the pile of the rest of their hurriedly gathered clothes. Keith accumulated several hickies on his neck that would be plainly visible above the low cut of his trademark v-neck shirt. When he discovered this later Lance would quickly accumulate his own equally visible matched set. Their hands explored every inch of each other, caressing and groping and grabbing every bit of skin they landed on, as hungry for the contact of skin on skin as they were for mouth on mouth. 

Finally when they next broke apart Lance asked again "so you mentioned some fantasies."

"Uuugh, Lance, would you quit being so conceited, it's actually kind of killing the mood now?" Keith pleaded.

"No seriously, it's not me being conceited, well it's not just that anyway, I'm actually really curious." Keith remained unconvinced. Lance added, "I'll tell you some fantasies I've had about you."

Suddenly Keith's curiosity was piqued too "you've had fantasies about me? Like what?"

"See. We're both conceited." Lance spread his arms gregariously. 

"Fine,” Keith agreed with a wicked twinkle in his eye, “but how about instead of telling we just do." Keith suddenly grabbed him, swung him around and slammed him against the door firmly. "First we'd be making out like this." Keith kissed him passionately and deeply for a few seconds then jerked away, leaving Lance wanting more. "Then I'd do like this." As he said this he began to sink down into a kneeling position. 

And then there it was, nearly the exact scene Lance had jerked off to in the shower earlier that day, almost play by play. There was even the tiny adorable kiss. Lance caressed his head as Keith blew him. It was better than he imagined, it was better than anything that had ever happened to his dick, bar none. His knees almost gave way when he came and he let out another half choked series of gasps. He sank to the floor heavily and opened his eyes again just in time to see Keith swallowing his load and then wiping away the little bit that had escaped out of the corner of his mouth and dribbled down his chin. 

"How can you even be this cute?" Lance demanded breathlessly. 

Keith's pale skin reddened all over his naked body at the accusation. 

"Come here" Lance said as he stumbled forward to kiss him. They exchanged a quick peck and then Keith reclined farther and farther back while Lance continued to scoot forward over him until they were one on top of the other, just as they were at the end of their sparring. Lance could feel Keith's boner grazing against his ass. He teased it and grinded on it as they smooched intermittently. 

Finally Keith asked, "so what about you?"

"What about me?" Lance replied with a grin of cheshire proportions. 

"You said you had some fantasies about me too."

"Oh," Lance said with sudden realization, "right. Well that was pretty much it actually."

"You sucking me off?"

"You sucking me off actually."

Keith frowned "well that's hardly fair, what are we going to do about this." At this he thrust his boner up between Lance's ass cheeks causing him to shoot bolt upright. 

"I dunno, I've never really pondered...reciprocating...before" Lance said defensively. 

Keith frowned "Lance, how long ago did you realize you were bi?" 

"Maybe a couple hours," he admitted bashfully. 

So that’s what he and Shiro had been talking about in the weight room, Keith conjectured. "You said you wanted to kiss me every time we sparred?"

"I did!" Lance assented, "it just took me a really long time to realize that I wanted to do that because I had like, a huge debilitating crush on you. I've never been with a guy before this, I never thought I would until very very recently."

"Well again I ask, what are we going to do about THIS." He gave another thrust and Lance jumped again. 

"I guess I'll go down on you?" Lance asked with all the confidence of a student asked to give an answer he doesn't know about an article he forgot to read. 

"It's only fair after all" Keith smirked as he shimmied out from under Lance. 

"Just don't expect me to be as good as you."

"Was I really that good?" Keith asked as he led his loverboy over to the bed. 

"You were amazing dude, world shattering, I think that blowjob single handedly eradicated every remaining trace of my latent lingering heterosexuality."

"Hell yeah" Keith preened. 

Lance lobbed a pillow at his face. "Conceited."

He was indeed not as good as Keith was, at least at first. There were many times Keith had to complain about teeth and Lance found it distracting to have something in his mouth and not bite down on it. But eventually he got a certain rhythm to it and had Keith moaning happily. Keith certainly participated too, grasping and caressing the short fuzz on Lance’s scalp, whispering little praises and curses about how very good he felt and rocking his hips slightly. For the last few frantic moments he grabbed Lance’s head tightly and thrust into his gaping mouth till he came. The climax caught Lance off guard and left him coughing and Keith apologizing. All in all it was the sort of thing you could expect from a first time, slightly awkward, slightly silly but still very hot.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance and Keith have a serious conversation about what just happened.
> 
> Meanwhile everyone else notices their absence and the truth quickly unravels. Everyone agrees to keep quiet about it just as the tardy couple finally arrives for dinner.

After their fooling around was done and they had a chance to shower off the two boys retired to Lance's bed again. Lance lying on his back and Keith on his belly slid halfway on and half off of Lance and resting his head on his chest. They lay there contentedly and felt each other inhale and exhale softly. 

Suddenly Keith asked "so are we gonna be boyfriends now or what?"

Lance was caught off guard by the question and looked down at him, "what?"

"Are we going to be boyfriends now?" Keith repeated firmly, turning up to return his gaze. 

"I dunno, I mean, it seems kind of sudden to think about that. We just, that was the first time we even did anything like that."

"Listen I'm looking for something serious, if all you can offer is a cheap screw I can get that anywhere." Keith spat venomously as he sat up and turned away in rebuke. That's always what he said to Garrison guys who started asking for too much in exchange for way too little. 

"You can't though," Lance said flatly, "we literally talked about this earlier, we're stuck with each other as our only options for the foreseeable future."

Keith seethed as he realized Lance was right, he hated having his words thrown back in his face, "whatever. Point is I don't want to just have sex with you and that be it. If you can’t handle that then you can forget about this."

"I guess I just haven't really thought about how I feel about the idea of us being boyfriends. I only just very recently found the right way to articulate how I feel about you."

"So what do you think of the idea now?" He demanded.

"I think...I need to think about it a little more" 

Keith sighed heavily and lapsed into stony silence, but he made no move to stand up and leave. On one hand he understood Lance's hesitation, like he said it hadn't even been fully a day since either of them thought they might actually end up together. Even aside from that he knew he was hurrying them into a relationship, these things were supposed to take time, it was a pretty serious decision after all. But he had to know now if it was going to work or not, now that he knew Lance could like him sexually he had to know if there was any romantic possibility too. If he let it lie he would give in anyway, no matter which way it went. Keith knew he couldn't really just let go of Lance, especially not now. He would keep sleeping with him just to stay close to him but he would hate every second of it, and hate himself for it. He had to know so it wouldn't come to that and he had to know now. 

Lance thought about it, how did he feel about Keith being his boyfriend? He had never actually considered having a boyfriend before. He thought about doing the sort of things he had always imagined doing with a girlfriend, but with Keith. Imagined bringing him flower and going on dates. Imagined trying to make home cooked meals with him which wouldn’t turn out very good, but which they would both eat every bite of anyway. He imagined sitting in some sunny place with Keith’s head in his lap, running his fingers through his hair and just sitting contentedly. Lance realized, to his surprise, that the thought of doing all these things with Keith sounded just as nice or even nicer than doing them with any girl he had ever taken a fancy to. After a minute or two of deliberating Lance said, "I guess dating gets pretty simple when there's only one person for you to consider. You either want to date them or you don't."

"And do you?" Keith asked, trying to keep the note desperation out of his voice. 

Lance gave it one final consideration for a moment, which seemed to Keith to stretch on forever. "yeah," he answered at last, "yeah I think you being my boyfriend would actually be pretty great."

Tears of relief welled up in Keith's eyes and ran down his cheeks as he turned again and nestled his face back into Lance's chest. Relief that it had all worked out as well as it possibly could have, he was pressed up against the guy of his dreams using his chest as a pillow, and he had just called Keith his boyfriend. His crying would have gone unnoticed if not for a sudden silent but violent sobbing that shook his whole body. 

"Keith?" Lance asked fondly. When Keith turned to him his eyes were screwed up tight and all red and wet with tears, but his mouth was a manic happy grin. 

"Oh come on," Lance whined melodramatically, "surely being my boyfriend can't be that bad already?"

"No" Keith whispered happily as he returned his head to Lance's chest, "being your boyfriend is actually already pretty great."

\---

While Keith and Lance cuddled happily, the rest of the castle’s inhabitants convened in the kitchen for a hearty dinner of green space goop.

“Does anyone know where Keith and Lance are?” asked Allura, “they aren’t still sparring are they? They usually finish up well before dinner time.”

Pidge and Shiro exchanged looks but said nothing.

“No your majesty, couldn’t be that,” Coran insisted, “I saw them headed away from the training room some time ago, it was the damnedest thing too. They were stripped down to their underwear and carrying the rest of their clothes in their arms, wherever they were headed they must’ve been in a big hurry because they nearly ran me down as we all came to an intersection in the hallway. In spite of our near collision I don’t think they hardly noticed me.”

Pidge snorted and Shiro scowled at him till he regained his composure.

“Pidge, do you have some idea where they were headed?” Allura interrogated.

“Yeah,” Pidge blurted smugly, “back to Lance’s room.” Shiro scowled at him even harder, and the young boy lost his smugness.

“And what were they doing there?” Allura insisted.

This time Pidge remained silent. The whole dinner table wordlessly looked from him to Shiro, waiting for one of them to bring the rest up to speed.

At last Shiro signed, “does anyone not already know about them? Or at least have a notion about it? I don’t want to air their secrets but if they’re not secret anyway we might as well talk about it.”

“A notion about what exactly? What’s going on with Keith and Lance?” Hunk said, voicing the thoughts of Allura and Coran as well. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying? Cause it kind of sounds like you’re saying they’re…” he trailed off, searching for an appropriate euphemism.

“...finally acting like civilized Alteans have for thousands of years?” Princess Allura offered tentatively. 

Shiro grinned. “Lance is anyway, Keith still only likes guys.”

“Oh yeah, that’s what I thought you meant,” Hunk said relieved, “I mean I knew Keith was gay but I was only pretty sure about Lance, he was always a little too obvious with some of the stuff he would insist was ‘friendly bro behavior.’ So he’s finally out of the closet?”

“Out of the closet?” The Princess asked, obviously puzzled, “what closet, when was Lance ever in a closet?”

“It’s an earth saying which means...finally acting like a civilized Altean.” Shiro explained.

“Well it’s about time,” Coran said proudly, “I’m still baffled as to why most earthlings insist that intimacy is somehow tied to procreation.”

“Wait wait wait,” interjected Hunk, “You and the Princess too? Does that mean that I’m the only heterosexual left?”

“I wouldn’t be taking pride in your primitive ignorance,” said Allura haughtily.

“Also, I wouldn’t be so confident Hunk,” Pidge said playfully, “if Lance is any example I’d say heterosexuality can’t survive long in deep space. Who knows, maybe one day you’ll be sparring with shiro and then. BAM.” He left the rest up to their collective imagination. Shiro sputtered defensively.

“Yeah no,” Hunk said confidently, “and I’m not ignorant, I had some experiences with guys before I came to the Garrison, it’s just not for me. I know that for a fact.”

“I’m sorry Hunk,” the Princess apologized, “It seems you are just as enlightened as the rest of us then.”

“Huzza” cheered Coran, “We’re all out of the closet. This calls for a celebration”

“I think Keith and Lance are way ahead of you on the celebration front,” Pidge said wryly.

Shiro shot him another withering look and then admitted, “Actually Lance said something along those very lines Coran.”

“Really?” Allura said fascinated, “Is such a thing common on Earth?”

“Uhhh, not usually, I think he was only joking actually,” Shiro added quickly.

“Aw come on Shiro,” Hunk implored sarcastically, “let’s throw those two a party, they’ve been through so much lately.”

“I’ll begin Preparations immediately,” suggested Coran earnestly but unhelpfully. He stood as if to go gather party supplies that very instant.

“No!” said Shiro, more harshly than he had intended, everyone froze and looked at him. He continued more softly, “It would only embarrass them if we did that now, Lance especially would think we were making fun of him. Let them come to terms with this on their own and then we can throw them a party. On Earth this would be a tough and confusing thing to go through for boys their age, and we don’t need to do anything to startle or upset them.”

They all agreed to postpone any “out of the closet” parties until Lance and Keith were well and truly out of it on their own terms. They also agreed that if either of them revealed any shocking new information about their sexuality or relationship they would feign complete ignorance. Slowly the dinner conversation returned to normal, but in the back of their minds they all imagined how they would tell Lance they had “no idea that he liked guys” or how they would congratulate Keith on winning over his dream boy. Shortly after the absent couple showed up, fully dressed except for Lance missing a sock, both of them were heavily winded and trying too hard to act casual. They had clearly sprinted to the kitchen when they realized how long they had been gone, in an attempt to still catch dinner and abate suspicion.

“Where have you two been?” demanded Princess Allura.

“They were probably sparring, Princess,” Pidge said with a mischievous twinkle in his eye. Shiro kicked him under the table and Pidge let out a little yelp. 

“Yeah, we were sparring and lost track of time,” agreed Lance.

“We didn’t realize how late it had gotten,” added Keith.

“Well you should be more attentive,” scolded Allura, “eating together is an important team bonding experience, we can’t have you two skipping meals to go sparring.”

“But we were having our own bonding experience,” countered Lance.

“I’ve no doubt about that,” said the princess wryly, “but we need you to train as a team, and I think you’ve done plenty of sparring for today. Sit down and grab a plate of goop.” 

The two boys did as they were bid. Occasionally they glanced at each other triumphantly, believing their ruse had completely fooled the rest of their team, entirely forgetting the dark red hickies they had left on each other’s necks. Underneath the table Keith slid his foot up against Lance’s and their skin seemed to spark at the point of contact. They smiled down at their food and pretended not to notice each other, unaware of how obvious they were being. No one said anything about it, they let the two young lovers maintain their happy delusion until they were ready to break the news. The conversation drolled on and everyone was happy, Lance and Keith were happy about each other, everyone else was happy for them. Silently, each to themselves, they did have a small celebration of the day's events after all.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith is gay, Lance is bi and the two of them are boyfriends. They are very bad at keeping any of this a secret. It of course doesn't matter since everyone knew anyway though, they try to let the two think they're slick but they're just as bad as keeping their knowledge of the events a secret.

Over the next few days the rest of the crew made little hints to Keith and Lance that their secret was either already out or should be. In spite of their promise at patience and ignorance they couldn't help themselves. They were eager at the idea of a party, even a silly made up one caused by cultural miscommunication, and furthermore they wanted to poke fun at the two lovebirds for how transparent they were being. 

Pidge was the first to act, the very next day in fact. He crossed paths with Lance and Keith in the hallway as they were about to head to the training room for their usual sparring. They had been chatting happily about nothing in particular but their feet and their mouths both stopped when they caught sight of the green paladin. Pidge was crossing a corridor transverse to them, his origin and destination weren't discernible but it was ostensibly possible their meeting was an accident. Pidge stopped too and looked at the two older boys. 

“Hey Pidge,” called Keith, with just a hint of warning in his voice, as well as a note of triumph that he had emptied Pidge’s threat from the day before. 

Pidge didn't respond and only continued to gaze at them. The lights from the corridor glared off his glasses and rendered his eyes invisible. His expression was blank and ominously unreadable. Then suddenly the thin line of his mouth curled into a smile and he walked off without a word. 

“What was that about?” Asked Lance, who had a pretty good guess what it could be about. He tugged his jacket collar up his neck a little in an attempt to hide the dark lovebites Keith had placed there yesterday. 

“Who knows?” said Keith dismissively, who was pretty sure he knew. “Come on,” he said “let's get to the training room.” The two of them continued on their way and soon forgot about the bizarre encounter. 

\---

Shiro was next, but he at least had the good grace to wait a few days. He made his move as he saw Keith in a corridor on his way to the kitchen for a late lunch. 

“Hey there Keith,” Shiro said as he waved in salutation. 

“Hey Shiro,” Keith returned along with a wave of his own. 

“I've been meaning to ask, did you ever get a chance to talk with Lance about that thing you mentioned a few days back? You seemed pretty worked up about it.”

Keith smiled in spite of himself. “Yeah, we're all good now,” he assured. 

“Ah, that's good to hear” Shiro smiled back. 

“What were you two talking about in the weight room just before then?” 

“Ah,” said Shiro seriously, “I would tell you but I think he would prefer to keep it between me and him. I'm sure you understand.”

“Sounds like it was a pretty heavy conversation.” 

“Not too serious, I think it was a one time crisis he just needed some advice on, he seemed at peace with it by the time we were done talking. It wasn't really anywhere near as big of a deal as he was making it out to be, he may have even mentioned it to you offhandedly. In any case you aren't going to hear it from me.”

“Fair enough,” conceded Keith, “maybe I'll ask him about it at some point and see if I can just get it first hand.”

“You do that,” Shiro agreed with a knowing smile. 

“Well I ought to get going,” Keith smiled back at him confidentially, “later.”

“Later.” And with that the parted ways.

Keith was pretty sure Shiro knew all about him and Lance, he had probably known since the day it happened. For Christs sake Lance had confessed to him about his crush in the weight room and then mere minutes later he had seen Keith storming through the halls with his own crush written all over his face. That was alright though, Shiro was trustworthy, and furthermore he had probably been in a similar predicament in the Garrison at some point, or at least had a pretty good idea of what it might be like. They didn't have to worry about Shiro knowing they were dating, in fact Keith was happy he knew. At any rate it meant he would be able to talk about Lance with someone other than Pidge, even if he would probably only ever gush about Lance instead of pine over him. 

\---

Shortly after this Lance had his own encounter with Princess Allura in the ship’s main control room. He had been wandering aimlessly between group training and sparring with Keith and decided he would try paying her a visit. 

“Well hello Princess,” he intoned flirtatiously as he approached her at the helm. He had felt a little weird about still flirting with her after he was officially but secretly monogamous. Ultimately though he had decided that since he had done it so tirelessly it would be odd if he stopped now, at least while him and Keith were still on the down low. Besides, realizing he liked Keith hadn't made Allura any less beautiful or Lance one bit less his cocky self. 

“Hello Lance,” she said neutrally, only sparing him a glance. “I expected you to be sparring with Keith,” she suggested slyly, “you two seem to think about little else these days.”

Lance cluelessly missed her insinuation, assuming it was a rebuke for their tardiness to dinner a few days ago. “Oh come on, it's great training. It's helping us become better defenders of the universe and stuff. How long are you going to keep ragging on us for being late to dinner one time?”

“Don't misunderstand me Lance. I think you and Keith benefit greatly from your mutual training, it has helped you grow closer and become better fighters. However you two do seem to be fairly single minded about it of late.” She was trying to help him. Although she didn't quite understand why it would be, she at least understood that on earth this sort of thing would be kept very hush-hush. The two boys had however been anything but covert, they went everywhere together, and their faces when they so much as looked at each other were open books. 

Again, Lance missed her hint like a champ. “Maybe you and I should do some sparring instead then,” he said as suavely as possible, and then immediately regretted it. He worried he was going too far with this now, sparring had been Keith and his thing since long before they consciously realized it was. Would Keith be jealous if he started sparring with someone else?

“Alright. Why not?” Allura said casually as she stepped away from the controls and the consoles retracted into the floor. 

“What, right now?” Lance stuttered. He was wandering now in his free time but he had maybe 15 minutes before he was going to meet Keith in the training room. 

“Of course. ‘No time like the present’ as I believe you earthlings are fond of saying. Come along now.” She chirped. When Lance hesitated she grabbed him by the wrist and led him out of the room. “It'll help us grow closer and become better fighters.”

“Alright,” Lance said dumbly, “just don't expect me to go easy on you.”

Lance did not, as he soon found out, have to worry about going easy on Allura. Nor for that matter did he have to worry about it lasting much more than 15 minutes, he was having a hard enough time surviving for fifteen minutes. Allura was freakishly strong and fought gracefully and ruthlessly. Lance only once made the mistake of charging her and trying to overwhelm her, Allura didn't budge an inch and lifted him effortlessly off his feet. Before Lance quite understood what was happening she sent him sailing across the room as if he was no heavier than a straw man. After that he was as skittish as a rabbit, doing everything he could to dodge because as soon as she caught him she had him pinned in mere ticks. Lance thought pathetically that he would sooner be fighting Shiro. 

“Time out, I need time out!” Lance cried as he tried to catch his breath, “this is totally unfair, you have superhuman alien strength.”

“A Galra soldier would be at least as strong as me,” Allura admonished, “and there won't be any timeouts when you fight them.” She made a Lunge at Lance and he backpedaled fearfully. 

“If I was fighting a Galra soldier I could just shoot them, I wouldn't be unarmed,” Lance whined. 

“You don't know that for a certainty,” said the princess as she made another swipe at him which he barely got out of the way of, “the entire point of hand to hand combat training is to prepare for real fighting under those conditions. You might be disarmed at some point during a mission and you need to get used to that. Shiro always fights unarmed.”

“SHIRO HAS A FREAKIN’ ROBOT ARM! HE IS LITERALLY NEVER 'UNARMED'” Lance shouted indignantly as he stiffly karate chopped the air with his right hand. He was cut short by another charge from Allura and he sidestepped in only the nic of time. “Furthermore, he’s had a lot more combat experience than I have, especially against Galra.”

“Well then it's past time you caught up with him.” The Princess wasn't giving Lance an inch, either in the fight or the argument.

“Actually, I think the real solution here is that I shouldn't be pitted against a cyborg ninja war veteran or a psychotic merciless alien warrior princess at this point in my training,” Lance pleaded desperately. 

Allura finally stopped her ruthless assault. “Perhaps you have a point,” she admitted, “however I would caution you against only ever sparring with Keith.”

“What? why?”

“Well for one thing, you need to learn to work well with all your teammates, not just your favorite.”

“He's not-”

“Furthermore,” she interrupted, “you two seem to be getting a little rough with each other. You both had some rather nasty looking...bruises a short while ago.”

Those damn hickies, Lance cursed himself internally. They had slowly faded away over the past week even as new ones bloomed sporadically across Keith’s and his chests, this time hidden beneath their respective neck lines. Even so Lance’s hand still jerked up to cover where they had been. That stupid shortsighted moment of passion had caused the two of them a lot of anxiety of late but no one had called them on it until now. Lance had almost entertained the thought that their marks had gone unmarked, how could they have though, they were clear as day. 

“It wasn't anything serious,” he said nonchalantly, “nothing you should worry about.”

“I'm not worried about it, I'm just saying you and Keith should be more careful.”

Lance had a sneaking suspicion they were no longer talking about sparring. “Yeah, we will be from now on.”

Just then the training room doors slid open and Keith stepped in. He halted to take in the scene and then turned to Lance said, “you were sparring without me?” His expressions was truly pitiful. 

Before Lance could say anything to explain or console him Allura jumped in, “no need to get Jealous Keith, I have a feeling Lance won't be asking me to spar with him again for a long time.”

“Dude she's even worse than Shiro!” Lance complained, part in explanation, part in excuse. Keith’s expression softened into a smile as he read the plea in Lance’s tone.

“I would say that's cause you fight like a girl but clearly that would be a big improvement for you,” Keith teased. 

“YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT I JUST WENT THROUGH, IT WAS TERRIFYING.” Lance protested, his arms flailing in outrage. 

“Suuuuure,” Keith drolled sarcastically. 

“Are you suggesting that you fight better than a girl Keith?” Allura menaced as she fell back into a fighting stance. 

“No, no.” Keith backpedaled nervously, “I'm just saying Lance is out of his league.”

“It seems you two agree on that” Allura said, relaxing again, “well I'll leave you two to spar within your comfort zone, and if you ever think you can fight like a girl feel free to come get me.” And with that she made her way out of the room and back to the bridge, leaving the two boys to their usual sparring. 

“Did you know she could fight?” Asked Lance once she was out of the room. 

“No,” said Keith, “but I've seen her in the weight room sometimes. She can bench press more than Shiro. Actually she could probably just bench-press Shiro.”

Lance shuddered. “Never again,” after a pause he added, “I think she knows about us.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. She seemed to anyway. But she also seemed cool with it.”

Keith took a second to absorb this new information. “I think Shiro knows too.”

Lance snorted, “yeah there's pretty much no way he doesn't. Did he say something about it?”

“No, not directly. He seemed cool with it too though.”

“Well looks like the powers at be give us their blessing.”

“Woo-hoo,” Keith said with exaggerated dullness as he threw his hands in the air. A sarcastic grin on his face. 

“Horray,” Lance droned in a similar fashion. 

“I think Pidge probably figured it out too by the way.”

“Man that kid.” Lance shook his head, “he's too smart for his own good, not to mention ours.”

“We're really bad at this.”

“Speak for yourself,” Lance said as he blew Keith a kiss. 

Keith only rolled his eyes in response. “We're really bad at keeping this a secret I mean, captain hickey. Learn to control yourself if only for my sake.”

“Oh come on you know you want me.”

“Right now I want to spar with you.” Keith said as he began to strip off his normal clothes so he could don his paladin suit. 

“What about laaaater?” Lance intoned suggestively. Keith lobbed his wadded up shirt at his head to shut him up, it bounced harmlessly away. 

“Later is later and we’ll worry about that then,” Keith insisted as he began unbuttoning his pants. 

“Aw yeah baby strip for me,” Lance jeered and began to gyrate his hips in Keith's direction. Keith's pants sailed into his face and then plopped to the ground. 

“Fuck you!”

“Any time.”

“What's it going to take to shut you up,” Keith sighed. 

“How about a kiss?” Lance offered. 

“How about an ass kicking?” Keith countered as he slipped a leg into his armor. 

“How about an ass kissing? See, a compromise, everyone wins,” Lance offered helpful. 

“How about this,” Keith said as he finished getting dressed again, “you shut up, I kick your ass, and then later you can kiss my ass as much as you want.”

“Sounds fair, I'm sold.”

With that they the two boys began their amended sparring routine. They both made good on their agreement. 

\---

It was a couple days more before Coran found out about them too. Or rather before they found that Coran had found out about them. They were cuddling after sparring, and after their usual after sparring activities, when a sharp rapid knocking came at the door. 

“Lance? Keith? Are you two in there, I need your help with some ship Maintenance,” Coran’s voice boomed through the door into the room. 

Both of them disentangled in a flash and crouched on the bed restlessly, staring across the room to the still closed but unlocked door, then they looked at each other panic beaming from face to face.

“How does he know we’re both in here?” Keith whispered frantically. 

“I don't know!” Lance whispered back just as frantically. 

Another series of knocks at the door caused them to snap their heads back around to it. “Hello? Anyone home?” Called Coran. 

“What are we going to do?” Hissed Keith. 

“You hide, I'll try to get rid of him,” Lance instructed as he began searching for his underwear. 

Keith looked around for a hiding spot but the hyper efficient compact living quarters offered few options. The closet wouldn't close if someone tried to step inside it and the bathroom would close automatically, both were directly across from the entrance and would be easy to notice. He couldn't just hide under the sheets either. He looked around the room for inspiration and then found it. 

Keith bounded across to the wall just to the right of the doorway and pressed his back tightly to it, as long as Lance kept Coran out of the room he would be out of sight and pass over unnoticed. Unfortunately he moved too quickly and when his back made contact with the wall it sounded a loud thud that could most definitely be heard from the other side. 

Lance, who had finally located and put on his briefs, slapped his palm against his forehead in exasperation and disgust, it made a loud clap. Keith put an index finger over his lips to tell him to be quieter. Lance repeated the gesture back at him but more angrily to tell him that, no, maybe he should think about being quieter. 

Lance walked to the door and opened it while Keith stood mere inches away and concentrated on avoiding detection. 

“Hey Coran,” Lance said as carelessly as he could, “sorry I was napping, it took me a moment to get to the door.”

“Think nothing of it, where’s Keith got to though?”

“Why would you think Keith would be in here?” Lance pondered innocently. 

“Why, because this is Keith’s room,” Coran explained

The color drained from Lance’s face and then he quickly turned scarlet as he realized his mistake. 

“Oh god fucking dammit!” Came Keith's disembodied voice from the left of the open door, followed by a fleshy clapping sound and his hand struck his face. 

“Ah, there you are Keith.” Cried Coran triumphantly. 

Keith poked his head around into the opening and wrapped his left hand around the door frame, the rest of him remained hidden though since he was still completely in the buff. “Hey Coran,” he moped defeatedly. 

“Ok wait,” Lance said as he recovered from his snafu, “that still doesn't explain how you knew I was in here too.”

“Oh Allura already told me all about you two. Her and Shiro wanted to keep it covert and such but I can't for the life of me imagine why. Who needs secrets among friends?” Coran waggled his eyebrows and grinned at them like they three were co-conspirators on some big inside joke.

“Honestly I wish you had taken their advice,” Keith remarked morosely, “we were hoping it was a secret.”

“Now now boys,” Coran lectured, “there's no reason to be ashamed of this, why I remember when I was just a young rascal starting out my career in the Altean militia I had more than a few irons in the fire. Why this one lad-”

Coran was suddenly interrupted by a cacophony of refusal as Lance and Keith competed to see who could make him stop talking the fastest. 

“You mentioned you needed us for repairs,” offered Lance hoping to change the subject. 

“That's right I did,” agreed Coran, “I nearly forgot what I was even getting you for. I'll wait out here while you two get dressed.”

“Could you not actually, and we can just meet you there,” Keith requested hopefully. 

“No dice I'm afraid, unless one of you is familiar with the ship’s Maintenance tunnels I would have to lead you there. Besides if I leave you two to your own devices I'm sure I won't see head nor tail of you till dinner time. I know how it goes, why back when I was at the top of my game-”

Lance slammed the close door button before they could hear the rest. 

“Coran knows,” he muttered, mortified. 

Keith nodded, “so does Allura. So does Shiro. So does Pidge.”

“We aren't sure Pidge knows.”

“I think we can be pretty sure.”

“Yeah ok,” Lance sighed, “at least Hunk doesn't know.”

“He might.”

“Yeah. We really do suck at keeping this a secret.”

“Oh well. They were bound to find out eventually.”

“Oh fucking well.”

“Come on, let's get dressed” Keith said as he walked over to the pile of discarded clothes to search for his own briefs. “It weirds me out being naked and knowing Coran is on the other side of the door just waiting to regain us with tales of his youth.”

“Agreed,” Lance shuddered. 

\---

Hunk of course did know about them, but if he hadn’t known then he certainly would have been able to guess it from what he observed a few nights later. 

It all started as Lance was making his way to the kitchen for a late night snack and humming merrily. Specifically the tune he was humming was “good old fashioned lover boy” by Queen. He had always imagined serenading some girl with this song but now as he meandered through the melody he thought of Keith. 

He was just getting through the first chorus when he stepped into the kitchen and sang the last few words, “hmmm hmm good old fashioned lover boy.”

“I thought that was you,” said a familiar voice. 

Lance looked up and saw none other than Keith leaning against a counter with a small bowl of space goop in one hand and a spoon in the other. 

“I guess you couldn't sleep either huh?” Continued Keith. 

Instead of answering Keith’s question Lance grinned manically. Then started to shuffle towards him with improvised choreography as he continued to sing, “Ooooh let me feel your heartbeeeeat grow faster faster. oooooOOOO can you feel my LOVE HEAT?”

Keith started laughing hysterically at the overwrought display. 

“Come on and sit in my hot seaaat of looooove” Lance continued undeterred as he slapped his thighs suggestively, “and tell me hooooow do you feeel right after all.” At this point Lance’s shitty dance moves had brought him right up in front of Keith. 

“Oh my god dude quit, what the hell are you even doing?” Keith chuckled. He pressed the hand with the spoon up against his temple in a sign of exasperation and shook his head. 

“I'm serenading you,” Lance answered confidently. Just then he yanked the hand away from Keith's head but the wrist and pulled him away from the counter and towards Lance, causing the spoon clatter to the floor. Then Lance hooked his other hand around Keith's waist. Keith, off balance, let go of the bowl of goop and clutched at Lance’s shoulder to steady himself. The bowl went bounding across the floor before it struck a wall and rolled to a stop. 

Lance began singing again and as he did he began to waltz, for a few seconds Keith was rag dolled helplessly until he could synchronize with the dance steps. “I’d like for you and I to to romancin’ just say the word you wish is my command,” Lance crooned as they glided between the counters. 

Suddenly Lance realized the pace of the dance was different from the pace of the song and he switched to a tango. Keith was once again dragged along until he adjusted. 

“Let go of my you prick,” Keith protested weakly but he was helpless to keep the grin off his face. One of his hands was still caught by the wrist but now that he had his footing he began to hammer at Lance with his other still free hand.

Lance’s singing was interrupted by each blow but he pressed on, “Oooooh love (ouch) Ooo- (ow!) looooveeerboooooy (dude!) what’cha doing toni- (quit it!) hey boy- OW, DAMMIT KEITH JUST LET ME HAVE THIS.” Another blow fell and finally Lance just grabbed Keith’s other wrist and broke into swing dancing instead. 

“Write my letta’, feel much betta’ and use my fancy patter on the teeeelephone.” Lance stepped neatly to the beat of his words and soon Keith gave in and started kicking up his feet too. Seeing this Lance grinned and loosened his grip, he let his hands slip down the other boy’s wrists till their fingers interlocked and stayed there. 

Then suddenly Lance jerked them close together so that their chests were almost touching. His dancing slowed to a gentle swaying and Keith moved to match him. “When I'm not wiiiiith you, think of you aaaalways, I miss those long hot suuuuummer niiights.” 

Lance abruptly brought their still clasped hands into an air guitar motion and played an imaginary riff complete with sound effects before returning to how he was and picking up the next line. “When I'm not wiiith you, think of me always, I looooooove you, looooooove you.”

Keith soured the last note by blowing a puff of air directly into Lance’s face which was only a few inches away from his own. Lance shook it off and snorted in surprise, then glowered at him. “Dick,” he said. Keith only grinned back at him mischievously. 

Lance resumed his song and broke into the frantic swing dancing again. “Heeey boy, where’d ya get it from, hey boy where did ya go?”

All of a sudden Lance dropped one hand and yanked outward with the other, spinning Keith wide and away so that they were only holding onto each other by one hand. “I learned my passion.”

Then Lance jerked back and twirled Keith back up into his arms. “-In the good old fashioned.”

To finish Lance twisted Keith around and dipped him so low that he was practically parallel with the ground. “-school of loooooverboy!”

They stayed there for a moment, panting slightly, staring into each other’s eyes, grinning like mad men. 

“Is that also where you learned to dance like that?” Keith asked. 

“Yes,” Lance answered, and kissed him. 

He was about to break into the next verse when suddenly something at the top of his vision caught his eye. He looked up and saw Hunk standing in the doorway of the kitchen, as he had been for who knew how long. In his surprise he dropped Keith unceremoniously and he landed with a hard crack as his head knocked against the kitchen floor. 

“OW, DUDE, WHAT THE FUCK?” Keith demanded, rubbing the back of his skull, suddenly he saw Lance wasn't even looking at him and turned to follow his gaze. Then he spotted Hunk too and scrambled to his feet. 

“Hey guys,” said Hunk neutrally, as if he hadn't just walked in on his two friends singing, dancing and kissing. 

“Oh, heeeeey Hunk,” said Lance, snapping out of his stupor, “me and Keith here were just hanging out, goofin’ around, like choice bros do and stuff.”

“Yeah, totally, bros,” Hunk didn't argue. He had learned years ago that when Lance said something was what choice bros did he was stubborn as a brick wall. It was easier to just let him keep his delusion intact. “Just better make sure Keith is on the same page,” Hunk advised, “wouldn't want to give him the wrong idea.”

“Haha whaaaaat?” Lance exclaimed, “don't be ridiculous Hunk, Keith is totall-”

“Lance he already knows I'm gay,” Keith cut in. 

“What?” Lance outraged, he wheeled on Keith “Since when?”

“Like for years, I found out when we were all still at the Garrison.” Hunk supplied. 

“UNBELIEVABLE,” exclaimed Lance, “you were the first person I told about me being bi and yet you told the entire Garrison about you being gay before you told me?”

“Ok first of all, you told Shiro you were bi before you told me.” 

“He doesn't count, he was helping me figure it out.”

“Ok sure, whatever, secondly though I never told Hunk or hardly anyone I was gay, he just found out through the grapevine, I'm surprised you hadn't heard about it sooner.”

“Wait!” Hunk gasped with rehearsed amazement, “Lance are you saying that you're bisexual? I had no idea.” For added effect he clasped the sides of his head and bulged his eyes in shock. He had been practicing how he would react to the reveal for as long as he had suspected Lance was bi, so in other words for years now. 

“That's right Hunk,” Lance beamed, already forgetting his outrage, “and that's not all! You see Hunk, Keith and I are boyfriends!” He concluded triumphantly, putting an arm around Keith. 

“Oh my goooooosh,” Hunk marveled, “I never would have seen this coming but congrats guys, I'm happy for you.”

“Lance I'm pretty sure he already knew both of those things too,” Keith muttered sourly. 

Lance was aghast, and he looked to hunk for a sign of denial. 

“Whaaaat, no this is totally…” Hunk started, but trailed off when he saw both boys glaring at him. “Ok yeah I knew, everyone did pretty much as soon as it happened actually.”

“God dammit,” moaned Lance as he put his head in his hands, “I thought I was finally going to get to come out to someone.”

“You already came out to both me and Shiro,” Keith said unsympathetically. 

“Yeah but I mean like get to come out and something dramatic happen.”

“We literally became boyfriends because of it, is that not dramatic enough for you?”

“No that's like its own special classification of coming out, it doesn't count.”

“Oh whatever, keep sulking if you want to. At least this means we don't have to worry about sneaking around anymore,” Keith concluded, giving up Lance as being inconsolable. 

“And it means we can finally have the party,” Hunk chimed happily. 

“Party?” Keith asked. 

“What party?” Lance looked up from his palms. 

“You don't know about it Lance? Shiro said you were the one who suggested it,” explained Hunk. 

He remained baffled for another moment and then comprehension struck him. “Oh god dammit!” Lance whined as his face dove back into his hands, “this entire chain of events is so fucking stupid.”

“I dunno a party sounds kinda fun. Just as long as you save a dance for me loverboy,” Keith smirked.

Lance snorted at the saccharine pet name, his hand dropped away to reveal a shy smirk. “Yeah ok, for that I think I can stand a dumb party. But we had better practice a bit before then, your footwork is still kinda stiff”

Keith slugged him on the shoulder playfully. “Dick!”

Lance grabbed him by the waist and they spun around together. “LOVERBOY!” he exclaimed. 

“Aw you guys are cute.” Hunk said. They both halted their reverie and glared at him again. “Ok ok,” he conceded as he put his hands up defensively and backed away, “duly noted, I guess I'll just skip my midnight snack tonight.”

After he walked off they locked eyes again. “Now where were we?” questioned Keith. 

Instead of answering Lance took an exaggerated intake of breath and launched back into the song right where he had left off and going on till he finished. Then after it was done he started another, and another, and another, and they danced and sang and kissed.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Due to a runaway miscommunication, Lance and Keith are now being thrown a "coming out of the closet" party. Though truthfully it's just an excuse for everyone to have a good time. It's an evening of foul tasting alien cake, assorted dancing, shitty karaoke and of course young love.

“So what do you think they even have planned for this ‘out of the closet party’?” Keith pondered aloud to Lance as they made their way to the bridge. 

“I dunno,” responded Lance, “from what we got from Hunk it kinda sounded like it all started from a misunderstand by Allura and Coran and then they took the ideas and ran with it, so probably whatever this would even look like on Earth plus some weird Altean twist.”

“Huh, I guess so,” said Keith, “I hope there's cake.”

“Why would there be cake?”

“Why wouldn't there be cake?”

“Touché,” Lance conceded. The conversation dropped into a lull. 

After a few moments of silence Keith mused, “you think they'll have dancing for sure though right?”

Lance snorted. “You're just eager to show off all the new moves I taught you aren't you?” He teased. 

“I'm eager to show off my new boyfriend.” Keith wheeled on Lance and jabbed him the center of the chest for emphasis. “Who happens to be a spectacular dancer. Not to mention a massive tool sometimes.”

Lance grabbed Keith by the waist and pulled them together. “Oh I'll show you a massive tool,” he boasted. 

Keith couldn't help but smile, he rested his hands on Lance’s chest. “Easy there cowboy,” he warned. 

Lance barked in a comically thick hispanic accent, “no no señor, soy un vaquero.”

Keith had been calling Lance “cowboy” ever since he learned he had lived in Texas most of his life before coming to the Garrison. Lance enjoyed the the nickname immensely, it made him feel adventurous and sexy. He was not, however, one to let his heritage be forgotten. 

“Whatever you say buckaroo,” Keith said, intentionally bastardizing the word. 

“Hush, my little sư tử,” Lance said as he leaned in and kissed him. 

Lance had insisted that he get a cute pet name for Keith too, preferably one related to where he was from. Keith had explained that as far as he had ever learned pet names weren't really a thing in Korean, but he admitted that he had also never really had an interest in that stuff before now. sư tử was what the Vietnamese social worker at Keith's orphanage used to call him, appropriately it meant lion. Lance adored it and it stuck. 

“Your accent is still terrible,” Keith lectured as they broke away from the kiss. 

“Maybe if I kiss you enough I'll get better.” 

Keith started to protest but he was cut short by Lance’s mouth meeting his. He gave into it and they stayed like that for a long time. 

When they stopped this time Keith disentangled himself. “You just take every chance you get to kiss me,” he scolded. 

“You know you love it,” Lance beamed back at him. 

“You're going to make us late to the party.”

“We’re the guests of honor. We can't even be late, It doesn't start till we get there.”

“We're keeping them waiting then.”

“They can wait for a few more smooches can't they?” Lance pleaded. 

“I, at any rate, am going to the party now,” Keith concluded and started walking towards the bridge again, “if you want to kiss me so bad you're just going to have to catch up to me.”

Upon hearing this this Lance went into a dead sprint after him. Keith heard him pounding down the hallway and kicked it into high gear too, only barely managing to pull away from Lance’s grasping hands. They whooped and laughed and made kissing sounds at one another as they ran pell mell towards the bridge. Keith was finally tackled a stone’s throw from their destination but Lance suspected it was on purpose. They tumbled to the ground and exchanged a quick smooch before dusting themselves off and making for the door. Both of them were still panting heavily from their race. 

As they approached the doors to the bridge they opened automatically. The room was dark and quiet. As soon as they stepped in however, the lights came on. A homemade banner dropped down from the ceiling that read “happy coming out of the closet party,” in letters that started large on and then tapered off to slivers as they ran out of room. As it unfurled it released a shower of confetti. Shiro, Hunk, Pidge, Allura and Coran all jumped out of various hiding places. 

“HAPPY COMING OUT OF THE CLOSET PARTY LANCE AND KEITH,” they all shouted in unison. 

Evidently the new party typology followed the format of a surprise birthday celebration but with the names changed. 

“What was the point of surprising us if we were already knew about the party?” Keith asked in confusion

“Sorry, you'll just have to roll with it guys,” Shiro explained apologetically, “Allura and Coran pretty much just picked and chose their favorite parts from celebrations back on earth.”

“But a surprise party?” Keith insisted. 

“Oh but how could we not?” Allura piped excitedly, “a secret party! Why it's the most wonderful thing. Parties of the Altean courts took so long to get started, the invitations, the greetings, the procession, the endless pageantry. By the time you get to actually celebrate you're already sick of it. But with this you get to skip right to the fun part. It's ingenious, I can't believe our people never came up with it. Earth parties have such wonderful traditions.”

“Like cake!” Concurred Coran. He brandishing in both hands a tray with pillow shaped gelatinous blob of some unknown pale yellow substance decorated with green goop which could, generously speaking, be classified as a cake.

“AHA! Called it,” Keith gloated triumphantly. 

“Hold up, they never said anything about dancing yet,” protested Lance. 

Keith turned to Shiro imploringly and practically begged, “there's gonna be dancing, right?”

“Yes, there's going to be plenty of dancing,” he assured Keith. 

Keith turned back to Lance. “HA!”

Lance grumbled. “You mentioned there was cake?” He asked, trying to change the subject. 

“There most certainly is,” Coran said “I'm quite happy with how it turned out. Pidge helped me with it. We drew you two ‘fisting each other like choice bros do’ as he explained.”

“WHAT?” Lance and Keith exclaimed in unison, their voices a mix of mortification and shock. Shiro was silent but equally taken aback. Pidge beamed with mischievous glee just behind Coran. Hunk tried hard to stifle a giggle. Allura and Coran exchanged confused glances. 

“Is this...not what choice bros do on earth?” Coran asked, inclining the cake so the two rapidly blushing boys could see the picture on top. Lance covered his eyes from it in horror. Keith recoiled at first, then squinted, then suddenly the drawing snapped into focus and resolved itself. 

“CORAN, THAT IS CALLED A FISTBUMP,” he emphasized. 

Lance uncovered his face and after a moment comprehension of the image came to him as well. It was a crude but recognizable drawing of him and Keith smiling forward with one arm wrapped around each other's shoulders and the others engaged in a jocular knuckle drubbing. “PIDGE!” He shrieked angrily. 

Hunk couldn't help himself anymore and fell into full scale cackling. Coran and Allura still looked on in confusion, not understanding the gravity of the faux pas. Shiro glared disapprovingly at Pidge who was doing his best to look charming and innocent.

“I'm not sure I see the difference between fisting and fist bumping,” Allura puzzled. 

“YEAH CLEARLY,” Lance exclaimed. 

“Well what is fisting then?” She demanded, “what, is it some sort of obscene hand gesture?”

“Well...in a manner of speaking yes, but I think Pidge can be the one to explain it to you, or Hunk since I've no doubt he was in on this little prank too,” Shiro said accusingly. 

“Aw what? Come on,” Pidge whined. Shiro was unmoved. 

“Yeah, come on Shiro,” Echoed Hunk, “I had to play dumb about Lance's sexuality as he obliviously hit on various guys for years. And Pidge had to give Keith relationship advice every week when he didn't even have a relationship. We should get to play a little joke on them for all that.”

“Pidge! Don't tell him about that.” Blustered Keith. 

“Too late dude, he would talk to me about it like right after it happened,” Hunk explained to Keith before continuing his appeal to Shiro, “see that just furthers my point though I had to hear about Keith second hand too, we've suffered so much because of their clandestine lust, we deserve a little comeuppance.”

“I don't care who had to hear what from whom,” the Princess interrupted hotly, “someone had better tell me what fisting means this instant!”

“Nooooope,” Lance contradicted definitively, holding his hands up for silence, “nope nope nope nope nope. We’re going to stop talking about this immediately, and then we’re going to have some cake.”

“Agreed!” Said Keith. 

Allura graciously but reluctantly bowed to their demands, Shiro had to agree to explain it in private later. Coran began cutting and distributing the cake, ensuring that Keith and Lance got the pieces with each other's faces drawn on them. The two of them grimaced at this and then doubly at the flavor of the alleged cake. 

“Bleh, this tastes like burnt coffee and paint, how did you even combine that flavor with this texture?” Lance groaned after his first bite. Keith was polite enough to silently look like he was about to be sick. 

“Ahhh, it's just like my Gran-gran used to make,” Coran reminisced fondly, “she cooked up a mean prostit tree loaf, lucky thing I remembered her recipe huh?”

“I don't feel all that lucky right now,” Hunk bellyached, both figuratively and literally. His innards audibly seconded his opinion. 

“Nonsense,” expounded Coran, “sure it might not be the tastiest thing in the universe but it does wonders for mercury poisoning, sucks it right outa ya.”

“I don't think any of us need to be watching for mercury poisoning,” said Shiro as he set his plate aside. Everyone except Coran quickly followed his lead. Princess Allura hadn’t even taken a bite. 

“So what's next?” asked Keith. 

“Now I think it is time for one of my favorite Altean traditions,” Allura answered excitedly as she clasped her hands together, “on my planet whenever a couple celebrated their union, they would say their favorite thing about one another. Usually this is something saved for a more established and permanent union but I think we could bend the rules a bit don't you?”

“What like right now?” Lance sputtered, “look Allura you can't just put us on the spot like-”

“My favorite thing about about Lance is he makes me laugh, even though it's usually just laughing at what a self obsessed dork he is,” Keith broke in without the slightest hesitation. 

Lance was completely taken aback. “I…” he stuttered. “I uh…” Keith was looking at him expectantly. “Er I…” Everyone was looking at him. “I mean uh, Keith is…” Lance began to fidget his hands nervously. 

“Come on dude you can't think of one thing you like about me?” Keith razzed good naturedly. 

“Your eyes,” Lance blurted with sudden inspiration, “It's not even fair how you have such pretty eyes. And they always crinkly up at the corners whenever you smile. And your smile, it's like a sunrise every time I see it. I keep thinking I might finally get used to it but I still haven't. And your hands, how can you even have such perfect hands? Even in your stupid fingerless gloves they're perfect. And the way you push your stupid mullet out of your face. And the way your stupid skinny jeans hug your cute little butt. And the way you sigh when you get frustrated. And the way you say...uh…” He had meant to say “and the way you say ‘I love you’” but then he remembered everyone else in the room besides Keith. He realized how much he had just been rambling and where the words had been pouring forth only moments ago they now caught in his throat and refused to be said. His mouth gaped like a fish out of water and his hands fidgeted more frantically. 

Keith saw his floundering and came to his rescue, “ok ok man, that's enough, this isn't a contest.” All the onlookers snickered briefly at this. 

Lance only chuckled nervously in response but his hands slowly calmed down and he relaxed. 

The two boys stared awkwardly at each other, now unsure how to respond after the effusive flattery. 

Shiro saw them both floundering now and broke the silence. “Well then princess I guess that's just about that.”

“Indeed it is. Congratulations are in order, to your mutual happiness,” She said, and began to applaud politely. The rest of them joined in, Hunk woo-hooed explosively and Pidge started chanting “kiss kiss kiss” towards the end. It was a little weak with only five people cheering but Keith and Lance accepted it graciously, with the exception of Pidge’s contribution. 

When the clapping died down Shiro prompted, “and now?”

“And now,” the Princess answered, “we dance.”

Coran ran over to a nearby console and slammed his fist on it. A lively but seemingly aharmonic alien song burst from the ship’s PA system. Coran began to jerk and gesticulate spastically to the beat in a way that they could only assume constituted Altean dance moves. 

Allura shrieked with glee as she skipped over to join Coran “I LOVE THIS SONG!” As she started dancing she moved in perfect sync with him and now with a second person the movements seemed less jerky and random and achieved a mystifying grace. Still, it was clearly well beyond anything the earthlings could manage and the five boys stood to the side and watched awkwardly. 

Fortunately for them, Lance, Keith, Pidge and Hunk had each been carrying some kind of personal data storage device on them which contained there music library when they first arrived at the castle of lions. After a quick trip back to their quarters and some quick work on Pidge’s part to connect to the ship's speakers they had a functional party mix. 

Keith surprised everyone by having a healthy spattering of classical music, some of which would serve for ballroom dancing. Everyone paired off, Lance and Keith, Shiro and Allura, Pidge and Hunk, leaving Coran to pursue whatever Altean dance he wished. Lance likewise surprised everyone (except Keith) by showing what an incredibly graceful dancer he was.

After a few songs of that it quickly devolved into bickering over what to play next. Coran and Allura wanted more Altean music, Pidge wanted electronic, Keith wanted something to chill to, Hunk wanted something to thrash to, Lance wanted classic rock, Shiro wanted even older classic rock. Eventually after much discussion they arranged a system and order to take turns which promptly broke down anyway in favor of racing to see who could reach the console first to pick the next song. At one point someone found Bohemian Rhapsody and all the Earthlings belted it like a prayer to high heaven, leaving the Alteans just as confused and lost as they had been on the other side of their cultural exchange. 

From there the night quickly transformed into impromptu karaoke, a further misuse of the ship’s emergency announcement system. Coran sang a high wailing piece that seemed to have no words whatsoever and Allura rattled off what was apparently a furious fast paced rap about the beauty of springtime in Altea. Shiro gave a stirring rendition of “cheeseburger in paradise” by Jimmy Buffett, adopting a surprisingly accurate country twang for the duration. Pidge half beatboxed and half sung along to “harder better faster stronger” by daft punk. Hunk followed him by busting out Gloria Gaynor’s “I will Survive” at the top of his lungs, he got a standing ovation for his effort. With supplemental convincing from everyone else, Keith was able to coax Lance into giving a repeat performance of “good old fashioned lover boy” by Queen. Finally, Keith surprised everyone for the second time that night with his song selection, “Hallelujah” by Jeff Buckley. He struggled somewhat with the extreme highs and lows but his deep raspy voice carried the melody beautifully. 

Lance’s eyes were fixed on Keith for the entire performance. When he was done Lance said awestruck, “dude, I didn't know you could sing like that.”

“Psh,” Keith scoffed, “now you know how I felt. Besides I'm nowhere near as good as you.”

“Dude, I-” Lance began. 

“Booooo, get off the stage,” Hunk jeered tauntingly. 

“Get a room you two,” Pidge added. 

Lance was about to give a reply but was interrupted again. 

“All of you be quiet and give it a rest for once. It's my turn again,” said Allura already walking back from the console, her next song’s opening bars already audible. 

Keith shrugged and handed the microphone over to her. He sat down beside Lance and without so much as looking at each other they entwined their fingers and held hands. A contented smile settled on each of their faces. 

Allura’s next song was an equally fast paced Altean rap. Coran and Shiro also stayed in familiar territory. For Pidge’s next song both he and Hunk took the stage to sing “teenager in love” by Neon Trees in unison and pointedly stared at Lance and Keith the entire time. In Retaliation the young couple sang their own duet next, “ain't no mountain high enough” by the Temptations. They even swapped the mic back and forth when the parts changed and both held it at the together parts, and did so with a coordination that was both impressive and sickeningly adorable. 

The night continued on like this till everyone was either too hoarse or too tired to keep singing. They all cleaned up the bridge and made for bed, joking that either Hunk or Pidge should get a boyfriend so they could do this again sometimes. Both of them declined the advice. 

Lance and Keith retired together, now officially having no reason not to share a bed at night. 

As they walked Lance said, “hey Keith”

“Yeah?”

“Earlier, at the party. What I was gonna say was...I love the way you say I love you.”

Keith smiled at him. “I love you.”

Lance immediately hid his face behind his hands. “God dammit,” he complained helplessly, “how do you even do that?”

“I loooooove you!”

Lance made a distressed noise and a rosy hue crept into the skin of his neck. 

Keith paused, they prompted, “well?”

“I love you too,” Lance muttered beneath his hands. 

“Sorry I didn't quite hear that” Keith said, hearing it perfectly well. 

“I love you too,” Lance said a little louder, still not moving his hands. 

“Sorry I still didn't catch it,” Keith insisted, moving closer to Lance. 

“I SAID I LOVE YOU TOO,” Lance yelled as he finally took his hands off his face. 

Keith smooched him right on his now exposed mouth. 

“You just like hearing me say it,” Lance pouted. 

“Yeah, I do,” Keith admitted, and kissed him again. “Now say it again,” 

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

One final kiss and they were once again on their way to bed, now holding hands as they walked. A lot had happened in the past couple of weeks, a lot of things had changed. Much that they had once thought to be inflexible truth had given way to startling revelations. Both of them had changed and little remained of the old Lance or Keith. But they knew that they loved each other and at that particular moment that was about the only truth that mattered to them in the whole of the universe.


End file.
